Win Some, Lose Some

I tilted my head to look up into her face, and I could see her eyes were still closed and her breathing steady. In the back of my head, I wondered why I wasn’t panicking in the slightest. This was new. This was different. I always panicked at new and different. However, I was also surrounded by the most incredible scent. It was all warmth and comfort and security and serenity—and just her.

I tucked my head back into the crook of her neck and closed my eyes again.

In what felt like the next moment, I was startled awake.

“Holy shit, shit, shit!”

I opened my eyes. The light in the room was the soft, dim glow of dusk.

“Oh my God,” Mayra mumbled under her breath.

I managed some incoherent sound before turning my head to look over my shoulder toward the sound that had originally startled me. Travis was standing in the open area between the foyer and the living room with his mouth hanging open and his eyes as big as Phobos and Deimos.

“Travis?” I was still really groggy. “What are you doing here?”

“I brought dinner,” he said as he held up a paper bag from a Chinese restaurant a few blocks away.

“Oh no,” Mayra said as she glanced around and noticed the low light in the room. “I need to go. Dad will be home soon, and I need to make dinner.”

“Okay,” I said. I still watched Travis. I couldn’t understand why he was looking at me so strangely. Mayra was shifting around beside me on the couch.

“Matthew, you have to let go of me.”

“Oh, yeah…sorry.” I pulled my arms out from around her. She stood next to the couch, adjusted her jeans, and fixed her shirt. Her cheeks had gone really red, and she didn’t seem to be acknowledging Travis at all.

“Matthew,” Travis said after he managed to shake loose the weird look on his face, “introductions, maybe?”

Shit, shit, shit.

“Oh, yeah…sorry,” I said again. “Mayra, this is my uncle—Travis Rohan. Travis, this is Mayra Trevino.”

“Good to meet you, Mayra,” Travis said with a toothy smile. “You must have been Matthew’s savior when he needed a ride the other day.”

“Yeah, it was raining really hard,” she told him. Her face was getting redder by the second. “He was soaked.”

“I bet he was.” Travis pressed his lips together and raised his eyebrows. He snickered. “You probably were, too.”

He was acting weird. I didn’t get it.

“It was nice meeting you, too,” Mayra said as she gathered up her things and placed them into her book bag. “Don’t forget to bring your laptop tomorrow, Matthew!”

“I won’t forget,” I said with a f

urrowed brow. It was a pretty rare occasion for me to forget much of anything, certainly not something homework related.

Mayra laughed.

“No, I guess you won’t!” She waved and headed out the door. “Bye!”

“Bye.”

“Matthew Anthony Rohan!” Travis boomed as soon as the door was closed.

I half jumped out of my skin.

“What?”

“Did you fuck her?”